Best Personal Trainer

Like many trainers, whose function is to motivate their clients as much as to guide them in specific exercise techniques, Anthony Tevlin has plenty of nifty phrases at the ready. "Like I always say," he likes to say, "if you've done the crime [of getting out of shape], then you've got to do the time [sweating in a gym]." If a certain writer were to come work out under his supervision, Tevlin says, it wouldn't be as if we could treat that writer's body as we would a brand-new car, revving it up at every green light. No, we'd have to realize "that what you have there is like purchasing a 46-year-old car with all its flaws." You're saying I look like a '56 Chevy, Anthony? One that's been kept out in the shed too long? But I'm interrupting the motivational flow. "People come in here, they're like raw lumps of clay. And I get to mold them into works of art." Can't I just reduce a bit here and a bit there, Anthony? "Ninety-nine percent of ads are all crap. It takes blood, sweat and tears to lose weight. It's a journey, not a sprint. There are no quick fixes."

Tevlin, whose athletic training degree is from Gonzaga, has worked at UNLV, with American Hawaii Cruises — "now there was a tough gig, floating around the Islands for a week at a time" — and for the San Diego Padres' minor-league operations. Now he spurs on most of the employees at ICM Asset Management in group workouts, along with about a dozen executives who undergo individual torture, er, sessions with Tevlin. Still, as upbeat as he is about his profession, Tevlin grows serious when considering America's epidemic of obesity: "I used to crack a lot of jokes about couch potatoes. But now that I've been in [personal training], when I see fat people on the sidewalk, [I encourage them to get fit], I say, 'Go, go, go — more power to ya.' " It's evident that personal training really is about motivation.